This morning we had toast for breakfast. Ground breaking news I know but we thought it was pretty good going considering we don't have a toaster in the apartment and the last time we tried to cook anything on the hotplate it beeped at us in disgust! Check out the pic, felt so much better starting the day with toast rather than sandwiches!

After our breakfast we had a few items we needed to pick up form Carrefour so we took ourselves off down to the subway. We were so proud when we were able to A- buy a ticket, B- get on the right train and C- get off at the right stop, that we didn't notice that we had taken the complete wrong exit up to the street! Oh well next time ay!

On the way home we decided to go to the vegetable market that occupies the basement of our building

. As dodgy as shopping for fruit and vegetables in a basement sounds, (especially a basement as challenging to navigate as a labyrinth, they say everyone gets lost down there at some point, we kinda did yesterday) we managed to get all the veges we needed, a couple kg worth for less than ¥10 (about $2 NZ!). That will make for our 5 Plus a Day tomorrow.

We meet up with one of the other foreign teachers for lunch and he showed us how to use the electronic whiteboards (THE COOLEST TOYS EVER!) and went over the basics of the curriculum we will be teaching.

At about 4pm we meet up with Taj again and went out to Ao Cheng, the "suburb"/mall where our school is based, we will try to take some pictures tomorrow for you all. We were introduced to most of the staff we will be working with, all of whom are nice, and after a sushi dinner we got to sit in on a couple of the classes being taught that evening.

You would think that for children who have been at school all day they would be totally exhausted to come to English class for an hour and a half at 6.30pm but they were all there bouncing off the walls like Energizer bunnies; granted they were well behaved bunnies!The classes we each observed were very enlightening for our expectations of what we are going to be doing over the next six months. The kids are generally well behaved and we have amazing Teacher Assistants that are going to make the whole process much easier for us.

Comments

Dad and Lou
on May 10, 2012 at 06:12AM

Hi Guys, what a great blog, and great to read that you are learning the ways of the East! Good luck for your first days "teaching".Very jealous that your 5+ Veges were only $2!!Good on you for getting around the subway on your own.

carol
on May 12, 2012 at 02:08AM

what about coffee? The tea that is drunk is very high in caffeine and you may not miss coffee!! It comes in whole leaves and not just sweepings off the floor as some is here! But dont drink it before going to bed or you may not sleep!

Jenny
on May 16, 2012 at 05:50AM

Love reading your blog. You're having so many great experiences! Do you actually get paid for all this fun :D